SELWESKI: Detroit's struggles will continue  even with Duggan

By Chad Selweski, Digital First Media

Saturday, August 10, 2013

The city of Detroit experienced so many moments of high drama in just the past few years that I’m a bit astounded that the growing crop of weekly cable TV productions has not produced a show based on the sad realities of Detroit City Hall.

We have witnessed so many low points, and some potential high points, that a true turning point for the Motor City had to be just around the corner. Right?

We’ve seen the corrupt and immoral exploits of Kwame Kilpatrick. His delusional predictions of a comeback. The bizarre associations of city government with sleazy characters like Sam Riddle and Monica Conyers and Bobby Ferguson. Countless investigations and indictments and convictions related to City Hall’s mafia-like pay-to-play system.

We watched as Dave Bing, a former Detroit Pistons Hall of Famer and successful businessman, rode into town, donning a white cowboy hat, and subsequently failed miserably at a Detroit turnaround and lacked the gumption necessary to tame the dysfunctional City Council.

We’ve cringed at City Council President Charles Pugh’s mysterious, long-term disappearance. We’ve wondered how the council could be so obstinate as to turn down the state’s offer to turn a former jewel, Belle Isle, into a rejuvenated park.

At the same time, Motown’s collapse sparked state-appointed emergency managers to oversee and overtake city government, the school district and the court system. In effect, these moves chronicled abject failures and stunning mismanagement by all three corners of big-city municipal government.

Certainly that would ignite enough shame and anger and righteousness for the city populace to rise up. Right?

The city’s unprecedented declaration of bankruptcy, exposing Detroit to nationwide scorn and a dark-comedy status as the poster child for Rust Belt urban decline, would clearly foster a backlash, a declaration of Detroit pride. Right?

Last week’s city primary election not only offered the downtrodden residents of Motown the opportunity to take the first step toward choosing a new mayor, it presented voters, for the first time in about 100 years, the opportunity to transform City Council by voting for most members in legislative districts, geographical wards with similar experiences and concerns.

What’s more, the leading candidate for mayor, Mike Duggan, bounced from the ballot by a technicality, was attempting to wage one of the most improbable write-in campaigns the nation has ever seen.

How much drama do you need?So, how did this screenplay turn out? Turnout is the key here — a little short of 18 percent of Detroit voters, less than one in five, showed up at the polls on Tuesday. Hardly a turning point.

Can anyone draw any other conclusion than that the city’s beleaguered electorate just does not care anymore? That they are so beaten down or apathetic that they are ready to let a small group of vigilant Detroiters decide all of this?

Duggan’s chief opponent, Wayne County Sheriff Benny Napoleon, moves on to the November general election. But he got there by garnering just 30 percent support — or less than 5 percent of registered voters — despite the supreme advantage of not having his top election foe’s name on the ballot.

The 11th-hour dirty tricks involved in putting another write-in candidate in the mix, Mike Dugeon, who quickly distinguished himself as a member of the lunatic fringe, certainly backfired. We may never know if Napoleon or perennial candidate Tom Barrow was responsible for those shenanigans, which further fueled snarky pundits who presented a caricature of Detroit.

Of course, low turnout in Motown elections is typical — the February 2009 special election when Bing emerged from a crowded mayoral field managed to generate just 14 percent participation at a time when the struggling city desperately needed new leadership.

In Macomb County and other suburban communities, a rather sleepy primary election in a city that is functioning well still produces more than a 14 percent or 18 percent turnout.

Suburban residents would be justified in looking at Tuesday’s Detroit results, with all that was at stake, and asking: What is wrong with these people?

I suspect that a situation in Macomb County approaching anything like the Motor City apocalypse would have sparked such an outcry that voter turnout on Tuesday would have hit at least 70 percent — the routine response to a presidential election — or perhaps even participation in the 80 percent range.

It would be easy, but wrong, to claim that the city, after white flight and recent black flight, is left with 600,000 or 700,000 bad apples. Yet, a portion of the remainder is a stew of “underclass” America, plagued by unemployment, poverty, illiteracy, unwed pregnancies, bad schools, crime-ridden neighborhoods, and high school dropouts.

Those are the people who traditionally do not vote in any election in any American city.

Emergency Manager Kevyn Orr may accomplish financial reforms and fix the city’s books, but he cannot motivate a population that is not willing to cast a ballot even in these trying times.

Duggan, who mounted a masterful write-in campaign that may earn a place in the annals of American political history, is likely to emerge as the next mayor. If so, the former Detroit Medical Center CEO will probably focus his energies on management efficiencies, effective administration and cost-cutting.

He should also work with the business community to expand on the economic momentum in Midtown and downtown. He would be wise to preserve the Detroit neighborhoods that remain prosperous and comfortable. And he should consider embracing previous plans that, with the help of volunteers, turn the inner city’s barren areas into parks, green spaces, farms, orchards, gardens and ponds.

But Duggan should not expect too much. He should not anticipate that the populace will turn out and help put the city back together. Turnout is something that Detroit does not do well.